No Taxation by Misrepresentation!

From 1763-1775, the rallying cry in the colonies was: No Taxation without Representation!

In 2012, our rallying cry should now be: No Taxation by Misrepresentation!

Not only did PPACA (Obamacare) pass Congress without any mention of the word “tax”, its defenders have emphatically denied that the law’s “mandates” represent taxation. Had the funding for the bill been presented as a tax increase, it would almost certainly have failed.

Incredibly, Chief Justice Roberts accepted the Government’s argument that the “mandate” is after all just a tax (wink, wink), and consequently the Government has the Constitutional authorization it needs to fund PPACA through taxation. Thus the SCOTUS majority effectively rewrote the bill, “deeming” it to say something that it does not, and then declaring as Constitutional a bill that does not even exist! I would have never believed such a thing could happen in the Supreme Court.

A Constitutional tax bill must originate in the House. The reason is that the Framers wanted tax increases to be launched only by those who would most immediately be facing re-election. But PPACA originated in the Senate. Strike 1.

A Constitutional tax must be an income, excise, or direct tax, and there are rules that must be followed for each. Clearly the PPACA tax is neither an income nor an excise tax, so it must be a direct tax. But Constitutionally, a direct tax must be apportioned by population. The PPACA tax is not apportioned by population. Strike 2.

Even without these explicit violations of the Constitution, by the rule of reason and good faith, Congress can vote for taxation only via legislation that explicitly calls that taxation by its proper name — a tax — in full view of the voters. Congress and PPACA did not do that. Strike 3.

How could any Justice, let alone the Chief Justice, ignore all this? By voting as Roberts and the majority did, our own Supreme Court has aided and abetted a massive fraud on the American people. This should be the stuff of novels, not real life.

Normally, one can seek redress for fraud through the courts. Where does one go when the highest court in the land aids, abets, and virtually commits the fraud?

For the minority opinion, Justice Kennedy wrote:

… to say that the Individual Mandate merely imposes a tax is not to interpret the statute but to rewrite it. Judicial tax-writing is particularly troubling.

Right on. The entire law should have been rejected and offered back to Congress either for the trash bin or for editing and a re-vote by elected representatives in full view of We-the-People. Has Roberts no shame at all?

Many Conservatives are so disappointed in Roberts that they are frantically concocting explanations and rationalizations for his astounding malfeasance.

One wretched contrivance argues that Roberts’ real motive was, somehow, to protect the integrity, balance, and honor of SCOTUS itself. Really? How does aiding and abetting a gargantuan national fraud do that?

Another rationalization argues that Roberts is cleverly giving Conservatives a “Remember-the-Alamo” loss that will so anger and energize Americans that they will throw Obama and his neo-Marxist, redistributionist entourage right out of Washington. But if SCOTUS is politically gaming its rulings to that extent, how can we count on SCOTUS in the future? If there is any government branch that should play it straight, surely it is SCOTUS.

The bottom line is that SCOTUS has ruled PPACA to be Constitutional by deeming the bill to be something that it is not. The SCOTUS decision is an Orwellian absurdity and a stain on SCOTUS that will remain until long after we’re all gone.

Memo to Chief Justice Roberts: Et tu Brute? With this betrayal and breach of the Framers’ final bulwark of protection for Constitutionally limited government, all we have have left is the ballot box. In November, we must win a new President and Congress, and we must exercise eternal diligence thereafter. The Left will never quit, and neither should we.

David Leeper is a retired engineer living in Scottsdale, AZ, with his wife of 45 years. He is currently a volunteer science teacher at AzScienceLab.com. In his 40-year career he held positions from lab technician to technical vice president at Bell Labs, Motorola, and Intel. He holds 16 patents in telecom technology and a PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania. During his career, he wrote mainly for technical journals including Scientific American. He began writing for WesternFreePress.com in 2011.